Chapter Text
Thanos was dead. Turned to dust, just like the Titan himself had done to half of the universe so long ago. It was an ironic end and it made Thor feel extremely amused. He briefly wondered if he should be worried about that, but decided against it. He didn’t care for much nowadays, anyway. He knew about the concept of karma, and the Titan’s end seemed to be fine proof of its existence. If only he could’ve been the one to use the gauntlet.
Maybe he would be dead then, instead of Tony. His stomach sank every time he thought about his friend. Tony had so much to live for. Tony had a family and friends who clearly loved him. He had a daughter, a successful career and a peaceful life. Not anymore.
Thor couldn’t help but feel guilty as he attended Tony’s funeral. Clearly it would’ve been better for him to die. At least he would’ve had the chance to do some good for the universe before dying. Besides, nobody would be left to mourn him. Sure, maybe his friends would be sad for a while (at least he hoped so), but none of them would’ve been this devastated. He had no family to leave behind. Tony’s snap hadn’t brought his loved ones back. They hadn’t turned to dust all those years ago, after all. Just to cold, emotionless, lifeless corpses. There was no miraculous returns for them.
Thinking these thoughts made him feel selfish. Here he was, at his friend’s funeral and he was thinking about his own problems. So he tuned them out and focused on the ceremony. After it was over, he offered his condolences to Tony’s family. They smiled at him through their tears, thanked him and told him to take care of himself. He didn’t really know why he was the one being told that when it was their family member that was dead, but he thanked them nonetheless and told them he would. A lie, but perhaps it would make them feel a bit more at ease. He said goodbye to his friends and received more sad smiles, pats on the shoulder, promises to visit sometime and even more suggestions to ‘take care of yourself’. He told them all the same lie, that he would and they didn’t need to worry.
Thor was just leaving when he heard someone shout “Wait!” and run towards him. He turned around. It was Rabbit. Rabbit had become much happier and was clearly overjoyed to have his family back. Thor was happy for him, truly he was, but he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy. Everyone else had gotten their loved ones back but him. He wondered what he had done to make karma hate him so.
“Yes?” he questioned as Rabbit stopped before him, panting for air.
“Quill is hell-bent on finding Gamora. We’ll be repairing our ship and heading out as soon as it’s finished.”
Thor was quite confused on why he was being told this information. He didn’t tell Rabbit that.
“That’s great to hear.” he said instead.
“Yeah. So anyway, I thought that maybe you’d like to join us? Unless you’ve got some kingly duties to attend to. The last time we visited your place it didn’t really seem to be under your rule, though.” The raccoon mumbled the last sentence under his breath but Thor heard it anyway. He tried not to take offense. It was true, after all.
It took a while for his brains to register the proposal. “You want me to… come with you?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Are you in or out?”
Thor hesitated. What of his people? Then again, as Rabbit had kindly reminded him, he hadn’t been much of a leader for the past 5 years. Perhaps… Perhaps it would be better to officially give Valkyrie the leadership. She was the one that guided the Asgardians all those years, not him.
“I’ll have to talk to Valkyrie about this. But what of your teammates? Have you asked for their opinion?”
“Not yet, didn’t have the time. I’m sure they won’t mind though.”
“And if they don’t want me to come with them?”
“Are you kidding? They love you. I swear, we almost had to invent a silencing device to stop Drax from constantly singing your praise. It was getting annoying.”
Now Thor was definitely confused. Loved him? When he was the reason they had turned to dust in the first place?
“But… Why would they like me?”
The raccoon just looked at him strangely. “Why wouldn’t they? You’re a pretty likable guy. Unless you’re talking about Quill, in which case, don’t worry about him, he just has a fragile ego and-”
“They turned to dust because of me.” Thor interrupted.
Rabbit’s look got even stranger. “Because of you? What the hell do you mean? Unless you’re Thanos in disguise I don’t see how any of that shit was your fault.”
It was Thor’s turn to give his friend a strange look. “I had the chance to kill him. I failed.”
“Seriously? You still beat up yourself over that? C’mon, we all failed. None of us could kill him in time. You are aware that literally no one else blames you but you, right?”
Thor wasn’t aware, and he wasn’t sure he believed it even now. Rabbit had said it with such certainty, though. None of his friends had treated him with disdain either, and had in fact still called him their friend. They had considered him a part of the team, even when he was just a pathetic alcoholic who slept through most of the planning and didn’t really contribute much. They’d even ask if he was okay, which he wasn’t, and he had always flashed a smile at them and said yes. None of them seemed like they believed him, but patted his shoulder with some variations of “Okay, big guy.” and left him alone. He still wasn’t really sure if they’d referred to his newly acquired stomach or his general size, but he didn’t really care. At least he’d felt like maybe, just maybe he wasn’t completely alone in the world.
“ -llo? Hellooo? Earth to Thor?” A voice broke his chain of thoughts.
“Hm? Sorry, what did you say?”
Rabbit seemed mildly annoyed that he had to repeat himself again. “C’mon dude, I’m trying to recruit you here, could you at least listen?”
“Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I said, have you made up your mind? I kinda need to run soon, Quill has been yelling at me for the past 5 minutes to ‘hurry my ass up’.”
Thor hadn’t even noticed, so lost in his thoughts. Yet now he could clearly hear the self-proclaimed Starlord shouting at his friend. Thor was silent for a few more minutes, thinking it over while the raccoon apparently engaged in a shouting match with his leader. Great, not distracting at all.
“C’mon Rocket, hurry up! We don’t have time to lose!”
“And just what the hell do you think is gonna happen in a few minutes? Relax, dude, the ship won’t even be in condition for a while!”
“Yeah, and you lagging behind isn’t helping!”
“Just go ahead without me, it ain’t that damn hard! I’ll be right there!”
“YOU JUST SAID THAT 5 MINUTES AGO!”
“STOP YELLING, I’M TRYING TO GET SOMETHING DONE HERE!”
“AND WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GETTING OUR SHIP BACK TOGETHER?! ALSO, YOU STOP YELLING!”
Just when Rocket was about to launch an angry rant about how he wouldn’t be yelling if Quill wasn’t, Thor interrupted him.
“I’ll go with you.”
“WELL I WOULDN’T- wait, you will?” The raccoon now turned to Thor, ignoring his raging leader.
“Yes. I just have to find someone to take the charge, and I know just the person.”
He hoped dearly that Valkyrie would accept. Maybe traveling with the Guardians would give him something to do with his life. Something to distract him from all of this. Maybe if he could get away from his miserable shack, he could one day do some good for the universe again. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel sick every time he looked out of his window simply because of how few Asgardians he saw. Simply because that just reminded him of his loss and his failures and drove him to down another bottle simply to block out those memories. Then his (or her?) people wouldn’t have to see the wreck he had become and lose their morale even more.
Yes, he decided, that would probably be best. For all of them.
His friend let out a cheerful laugh. “Awesome! You go talk to your future-leader-friend while we get the ship running again. We’ll swing by when we’re done, so wait there, alright? Do we have a deal?”
The raccoon stuck his hand out and raised an eyebrow expectantly.
Thor took Rocket’s hand into his and shook it firmly.
“We have a deal.”